According to the Trussell Trust there are approximately 2200 food banks in the UK.
The one in Crediton gave out 1427 food parcels to 164 households during 2021. Whilst Covid may still be affecting this, the number of households in food poverty in our area has clearly doubled since 2019.
Many people take action, by organising, volunteering or donating, because they feel strongly that everybody should have enough to eat to maintain their health. Thanks to them, (you?) food banks, such as the one in Crediton, are effective. However, the goodwill of local people should not need to plug a gap left by an inadequate state system when it comes to basic survival. As a volunteer at the Crediton Food Bank told us, ‘We are overwhelmed by the generosity of Crediton people and it’s humbling. At the same time we shouldn’t have to exist.’
The existence of so many busy food banks suggests that there is failure at an institutional level. The Living Wage Foundation calculates that we need to earn 99p per hour more than the government mandates just to survive and people who cannot work at all do not receive sufficient and reliable ‘top ups’ via Universal Credit without totally unrealistic conditions being imposed on them.
It is a scandal and any MP who has constituents using food banks should be campaigning for change and be lobbying their leaders repeatedly because food poverty is a political choice.
Recently Green Councillor, Elizabeth Lloyd, wrote a piece in the Courier about changing processes in local government that don’t serve us. (Courier, 28th January). Maybe it’s time for a rethink about other political systems as well. Would a universal basic income (UBI) – a regular unconditional payment to every individual, enough to keep them at a basic subsistence level – help to alleviate poverty?
It would free people from worry about day to day survival and provide a space in which many more people are able to think about how and where they contribute to society without the pressure to earn so much money.
We have many local examples of vital voluntary work: Sustainable Crediton; Age Concern; the Citizens Advice Bureau; village Voluntary Car Schemes, to name but a few, and there numerous everyday individual acts of kindness, such as checking regularly on a vulnerable neighbour. Without many of these projects and services our local area would be a poorer place, and many people would suffer. Yet within the current system, if you cannot prove that you are not fit or well enough to do regular paid work, or you are not a ‘hardworking’ person who is in paid employment or striving to find a job – any job- you are not deemed to deserve any income. This may not be sensible.
Do not dismiss UBI as a utopian fantasy; it is being taken seriously in some places in the world and it is a central principle of the Green Party (fully costed) manifesto. Both Scotland and Wales are planning to run UBI trials and small schemes are currently under way in such diverse places as Kenya and North Carolina. It is encouraging that studies on UBI have, to date, found no evidence that it discourages recipients from working and that it reduces social inequality.
Countries with a relatively small divide between rich and poor have fewer health and social problems than countries (like ours) which have a wider divide. These problems put strain on the NHS and other statutory services such as the police and social services. We need people to be as resilient, healthy and creative as possible but many people are currently so bogged down with everyday survival they cannot make healthful decisions. One Food Bank user told the volunteers, ‘The Food Bank literally saved my life.’
This needs to change.
This isn’t idealism, this is pragmatism.
(for more information see https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2021/07/31/greens-call-for-universal-basic-income-as-government-prepares-to-wind-down-furlough-scheme/ for more information)
